Reborn
by PJ XD
Summary: The stories of how the Cullens came to be vampires, and how they were introduced to the family. DISCLAIMER: I only own Twilight in my dreams...
1. London, 1660s

**Reborn**

_Carlisle_

I walked at the head of the small party, my torch extended in front of me, casting long shadows up ahead. I could hear Jeffrey, Matthew and Henry panting to keep up. I sometimes forgot that they were less athletic than I. I supposed I was atypical of the clergy.

Despite his less than warm regard for me, I was desperate to prove to my father that I was worthy of his respect, and so when he had offered me the mantle of leading these witch-hunts, I seized it without thinking too hard on the ramifications. I shouldn't have had to earn my father's love, but I felt the need. A futile attempt.

"Carlisle, do you see that?" I heard Jeffrey call, and I snapped out of my reverie. Sure enough, as I looked in the direction he was pointing, I saw a manhole cover that had been slid to one side, with a tall, androgynous figure climbing from it, smoothly and swiftly. Someone doing sewer work? At this time, down a dark street in London? I thought not. So this had to be it. The hunt I had painstakingly slaved over, making sure I held no one by false accusation. I had found what my father had unsuccessfully searched for.

The mutilated bodies found nearby. The odd string of disappearances. The work of a monster. A vampire.

I would capture the demon. I would be a hero at last. My father would finally be proud.

The figure called out softly into the night in an unfamiliar language. Latin, perhaps? I did not care. He turned, slowly, menacingly...

And he was gone, taking off down an alley with blinding speed.

Our group gave chase, me speeding ahead. We raced after the creature as it fled, my heartbeat drumming in my ears. Then it stopped dead, just as I had caught up with it. I saw why. I had chased it into a dead ended alleyway. So quickly that I missed the movement, he spun to face me.

And disappeared.

I blinked, unsure of what I had just witnessed. Was it a figment of my imagination? Had my mind been deceiving me, leading me on yet another wild goose chase? I turned around to check that my companions had seen the same thing I had just witnessed. A gasp of horror choked from my throat.

"Henry! Matthew!" I cried in fear. For my two friends, my fellow hunters, good-doers, they lay crumpled on the cobbles. Cold. White. Limp. Dead.

I staggered backwards. Jeffrey was nowhere to be seen. What had become of him? The fear was like ice in my veins. I stumbled back another step, and hit a brick wall.

Only... it moved. A scream rose and lodged in my throat as the monster gripped me firmly by the shoulders. I struggled, knowing it was hopeless, but still putting up a fight. He bent his head toward me, and all I saw was the flat black of the eyes, all I felt was the icy terror of the skin.

And then teeth. A razor sharp, blinding pain.

But it dropped me. I didn't know what had made the creature release its hold, had no idea why the ground rushed up to meet me, but I hit it with a thump. Blindly, I crawled, desperate to get out of the way, curling into a ball in the shadowy right corner of the alley.

I whimpered. The pain had started.

Every nerve in my body caught fire simultaneously. The heat radiated through my bones, blistering my insides, scorching my veins, making my blood boil. I screamed aloud from the agony, writhing, wanting to disappear, and wishing the monster had just killed me.

I screamed again as the fire raged.

My tortured body stayed hunched against the flames within for hours... days... weeks. Time meant nothing. The only thing I could concentrate on was the agony. Several times, I cried weakly for death. Surely God would spare me? Show me mercy? Had I not endured the flames of purgatory long enough?

I was scorched.

---

My arms were beginning to feel numb, and I thought I could move my toes. My judgement seemed to be drawing to a close. I yelled out in a frail moan of relief, thinking my prayers were finally answered, but the cry turned horrified as the burning intensified in my chest, searing at a thousand degrees in my heart. I prayed that death would come soon. Heaven or hell, I cared not, as long as I could escape the torment.

Then my heartbeats raced, faster and faster, faster than anything I had ever heard before. The pounding was brutal against my battered ribcage.

And then...

With one dull _galumph! _My heart stopped.

I breathed a sigh of relief, the action strange to me. Death at last.

Wait... I _breathed_? I was still breathing?

The air had a flavour, a sooty, musty flavour. But it was all wrong. It wasn't necessary. Or at least, that's how it seemed to me.

My eyes flew open, faster than a conscious decision, and I saw the same alleyway that had been used as my furnace for however long my burning had lasted. Only now, the place was flooded with daylight, save for my dark patch.

I stretched out a hand in a disconcerting movement, to touch the wet ground. It must have rained while I was burning. But I did not make it that far, as my hand slid into the path of the sun.

I lurched forwards, shocked. My skin glittered, like a million diamond facets throwing rainbows in the sunlight. Then I saw something that made me gasp.

My reflection in the puddle on the ground.

Beautiful... I had no recollection of the creature staring back at me, whose transcendence was almost hubris. But I knew with a sick certainty what the creature was. It stared at me with the crimson eyes of a demon, summoned from the fires of hell itself.

God help me, I knew what I was.

I was a monster.

Upon this realisation, I felt a flash burn in my throat, an echo of the flames I had so recently been released from, as the most intoxicating scent I had ever smelled drifted to me on the breeze.

I skulked back into the shadows as the people bustled past on the street ahead. My mouth watered as the burn flared again. With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I knew what this burn represented.

My thirst for human blood.

"No!" I whispered, aghast, in a voice like the sweetest symphony.

A symphony of the devil's music.

I was worse than a monster... I was a vampire.


	2. Chicago, 1918

_Edward_

Carlisle POV

I had been on this shift for thirty one hours now, and I knew that soon I would have to call it a night. The idea filled me with dread; I hated that my need to pretend to be a man left all these people without my assistance through the rest of the night.

I flicked open my chart to glance at my patient rota.

The next two patients on my list were two I had grown very attached to, not a wise idea in such a severe influenza epidemic. Some lives were more fleeting than others, and I knew with sick certainty that Elizabeth Masen and her son Edward were not long for this world.

With my established affection, this idea pained me. I had only been concerned in such an involved way as this once before – a sixteen year old girl who had fallen from a tree whilst reading and shattered her tibia. She was a sweet, bright, engaging child. Elizabeth Masen was much like her in spirit, perhaps the reason I seemed to feel a sense of a kindred spirit.

Elizabeth was caring, kind and... bossy. She made me smile, the way she fought her disease so stubbornly to try and care for her son. And Edward... we had had but a few brief conversations, for he was far worse off than she, but he seemed a truly pure soul. Honest and valiant and noble. Too many ideas of war for my liking, but the quest to be a hero was something I could identify with. I told him at one point to try for peace. He had, despite his sickness, pulled a face of disdain that was typical of a teenager. It had made me laugh.

He was peaceful as he slept, at least.

As I entered their ward, my heart sank. Elizabeth Masen's eyes were closed, a sheen of sweat on her gray face. Her lips were as white as my own snowy skin now, and I cursed myself for not being able to do more. I wished I could help.

I bent over Edward first, checking his temperature with the back of my icy hand. His skin, which would have always felt warm to me, now scalded as I stroked his feverish brow. I sighed dejectedly. It would not be long now for either of them.

"Dr. Cullen?" I heard a voice rasp from behind me. I turned to see Mrs. Masen with her eyes open, struggling to sit up, desperate to get a better look at her son.

"Elizabeth, sleep. You are weak." I soothed her gently, in my best 'patient' voice. It would hurt her to watch as her child died.

"No! No, Carlisle!" Her weak voice commanded me in a way I would not have thought possible. Her green eyes bored into my golden ones, and her face was fierce, her bronze curls soaked with sweat from the effort. She was so determined that I could not argue with her.

"Elizabeth..." I began, desperate to placate her. She seemed to be getting stronger, a grim light in her eyes. I reached to her.

"Save him!" she ordered, wheezing. I glanced at her half-dead son, not being able to bring myself to tell her that there was nothing to be done.

"I'll do everything in my power," I promised her solemnly, reaching for her hand. She didn't flinch away from my coldness. Probably, she could feel none of it from the intensity of her fever. She clutched at my hand with impossible strength for one so far gone, glaring at me with hard eyes.

"You must," she insisted. "You must do everything in _your_ power. What others cannot do, that is what you must do for my Edward."

A wave of shock rippled over me. Did she know what I was? How could she request for me to make her son into something like me?

I stared in horror for a moment, and she muttered, "Save him, save Edward." Then she slumped back onto her pillow, unconscious.

---

I stared at Edward's sleeping face, unsure. His mother had died a mere hour ago, and here I stood.

I'd longed for a companion. A friend, a confidant. Someone who knew the real me, not my human facade. But could I condemn another to this wretched existence on one selfish whim? No, of course not. But his mother had ordered me to...

_I wouldn't take away the boy's life!_

_But he was dying anyway..._

I waged an internal war on myself as I gazed down at Edward's sleeping face. This was insane. Immoral. Inexcusable.

Inescapable.

Elizabeth Masen was a good woman. And her son... he was strong. I gazed at his handsome features, his squared jaw, his straight nose, his full lips and his long eyelashes. Features in juxtaposition.

If I'd had a son of my own, I'd want him to have a face like that.

If anyone... why not Edward? If ever... why not now?

I knew my choice was made for me then. I had no choice. I was but fortune's fool.

Edward POV

I was boiling, burning, drenched in sweat. I had that horrible sense, the feeling that I'd be dead soon. The same feeling that had often filled me with a hatred for hospitals. They reeked of death. Of course, I could communicate none of this by now. I was weighed down with the fever, unable to move.

Something touched me. Something incredibly cold. If I'd known where my body was, or how to move it, I'd have shivered.

A voice broke through the walls of my embalming fever.

My mother's voice. Only I couldn't make out what she was saying.

The next thing I knew, I was... flying. The wind whipped my hair, cold against my clammy skin. This was obviously it. Death.

Then a pain... a very sharp, excruciating pain.

And I was burning again, but from the inside. The fire was in the core of my very bones.

I cried out in pain. When you died, wasn't the pain meant to stop? Would it ever stop? The torture persisted, and I wished on every one of my unlucky stars for oblivion.

What felt like an eternity later, I felt a light pressure on my arm, followed by the sound of an exhalation close to my ear. I could smell something... a calming scent that I vaguely recognised. Someone was in the room with me.

"Kill me," I begged the person blindly. I couldn't find my eyelids to open them.

"I'm so sorry, Edward." A melodious voice replied. It took me a fraction of a second to place it.

"Dr. Cullen?" I whimpered.

"Yes, Edward. It's me." He sounded agonized, like there was fire burning him too. "I'm so very, very sorry," he repeated, as if my fever was somehow his fault. How odd.

The fire ripped through my veins, causing me to scream out.

"Dr. Cullen, what's happening to me?" I cried frantically. I was panicking. Surely, this could not be a normal fever.

"You're going through some... changes," he explained hesitantly.

"Changes?" I gasped, writhing in agony.

"You're becoming a... a vampire."

I froze, stopping my frenzied thrashing immediately. I was so shocked; it numbed the fire for the smallest nanosecond.

"A what?" I panted.

"A vampire. Like me."

"How..." I trailed off as another strangled cry rasped up my throat from the agony of my torture.

---

Dr. Cullen stayed with me for a long time, every second of the blistering misery held another apology from him, be it voiced or silent. But as suddenly as the agony had travelled through my body, it had disappeared, until finally, my heart beat its last. I lay now, completely free of the pain that had enveloped me. Scarcely daring to breathe, knowing that I did not need to, I slid from the place where I lay; my eyes opening as I hit the floor gently.

Everything was in such sharp focus. It was like I was seeing for the first time. I saw Dr. Cullen, his face one that would make God himself jealous, one arm extended toward me, his face troubled.

I heard the rhythm of his breathing, the whooshing sound that the curtains made being blown by the wind, the sound of the children playing in the park across the street, the sound of a radio being switched on streets away... I heard _everything_.

"Dr. Cullen?" I asked, and my hand flew to my throat in shock. My voice was so... different. It was like velvet, smooth and hypnotic. It made me uneasy.

"Yes, Edward?" Dr. Cullen replied gravely, his amber eyes sombre.

"What..." I refused to let myself be distracted by the odd sound of my new voice. "Where are we?"

He studied me curiously for a moment. "My house."

"How did I come to be here?" I wondered aloud, my keen eyes roving over the wooden desk and large chaise lounge in the room, stopping at the colossal bookcase. I could read every spine with ease, though my optometrist had scolded me for refusing to wear my reading glasses as a boy. My mother had refused to pressure me into doing anything that I was not comfortable with.

Thinking of this memory was... uncomfortable, surprisingly. Like trying to see through cloudy water. My eyes had seen so little then. My mother was brought to the forefront of my mind.

"I carried you," Dr. Cullen answered my earlier question, though I had a far more pressing concern now.

"Where is my mother, Dr. Cullen?"

His face grew ancient in his sudden sadness, and already I knew the answer.

"She didn't make it through the fever, Edward. And please, call me Carlisle." His voice was gentle, but his expression alarmed as I grew motionless with grief and stress. That surprised me; I had always been one to fidget in stressful situations.

"Carlisle..." I began, hesitant. "What am I? You told me before, but I need to know..." I couldn't complete my sentence.

"You, Edward, are a newborn vampire."


	3. Ashland, 1921

_Esme_

Esme POV

_Ashland, Wisconsin_

I walked aimlessly, staggering toward the cliff face. The doctor's words were ringing in my head.

"I'm sorry, Mrs Evenson... your son passed away."

It was like a record on repeat. Eating me alive. I felt nauseous, my head was spinning. I couldn't think straight. Not that I wanted to; it hurt to think. God, it hurt to _breathe_. I merely closed my eyes, taking care not to look down from the edge of the cliff where I was poised. I could not afford to lose my nerve. Taking in a deep breath, sucking in the cool wind that was raising goose bumps on my skin, I stepped over the edge...

And plunged into nothingness.

Carlisle POV

"Just a second there, Jimmy." I held my cold hand against the squirming boy's leg to stop him from twisting. His cast wouldn't set right if he moved. It was only a small fracture, nothing too serious. He was twelve, and a healthy boy; it would be brand new in a few weeks.

"It's a little sore, Dr. Cullen," Jimmy winced and pressed his head into the pillow.

"I'd imagine that it does. You've been through the wars here." I smiled indulgently at the boy, his keen blue eyes showing the extent of the pain he didn't want me to see he was in. From the hour or so I had just spent with him, he seemed to be a soldier.

"So my mom says, sir. I'm always getting into some kind of scrape." Jimmy smiled apologetically at me. His brown curls were flattened at the back now from the force he was exerting against the pillow to manage his pain. I was instantly reminded of my own son. Edward was new to this life, but he was forever trying to display an iron-clad will that, by all accounts, he should not have had yet. Every time a human walked past, I could almost hear him grimace in discomfort, but he never complained. Personally, I was beginning to wonder if he was just a glutton for punishment.

"How did you do this anyway?" I asked animatedly, and the boy's eyes lit up, probably from the prospect of recounting his tale of gruesome injury.

"Climbed a tree. I had a bet with one of the boys from the village. I bet that I could walk across this big branch without it snapping. He bet I couldn't. He won." Jimmy shrugged nonchalantly.

I bit back a laugh. "Evidently."

"That's what you get," Ellen, Jimmy's mother, had obviously returned from the mess downstairs. She was a cheerful woman, with the same curls and eyes and rosy cheeks as her son.

"Leave me alone, Mom. I just fell out of a tree. How about some sympathy?" He caught my eye and then rolled his own, as if to say _mothers_.

I felt a memory spring to the forefront of my mind, and I watched in surprise as the scene materialised in front of me, a hospital room from a decade in the past...

_"So how did you manage this then, Miss Platt?" I sighed, probing my cold fingertips gently down the girl's leg. She grimaced and gritted her teeth in agony, her pretty face pinched and her hands balled into fists at her sides. _

_"I... I fell out of a tree Dr. Cullen." Her cheeks flushed with blood as she said this, and she returned her gaze to her lap, her caramel hair tumbling forwards to obscure her features. _

_"Silly, irresponsible thing to do, wasn't it Esme?" Esme Platt's dour, misery of a mother had snapped at her shrilly. "Sixteen years old and still climbing trees, what can you do?" She turned her attention to me with a coy smile. _

_"I suppose so, Mother." Esme sighed wistfully. "I am a little old to be climbing trees."_

_"Nonsense," I murmured, loud enough so that she could hear. "I've been known to do it myself, on occasion." I winked conspiratorially at her, and her wide, coral blue eyes got larger in shock. _

_"Really?" she asked incredulously. I laughed gently._

_"Of course. It's always fun, being a child now and again." I smiled encouragingly at her. Part of me just wanted to rescue her from the clutches of her unpleasant guardian._

_"What's the hurry to grow up?" She agreed, grinning widely. "Thank you, Dr. Cullen." _

_"Please, call me Carlisle, Miss Platt," I offered cordially. _

_She bit her lip, considering me carefully. "Okay..." she enunciated slowly, "Then you have to call me Esme. Deal?" She raised her eyebrows._

_"Deal," I agreed with a chuckle. _

_"That's hardly appropriate, Esme," Mrs Platt scolded her daughter. _

_Esme rolled her eyes at me behind her mother's back. _

Jimmy was so like her, but with a much more amicable mother. I had grown very fond of Esme over the two week span when I had treated her, the fondest I'd ever grown of a patient. She was so bright and upbeat and enthusiastic, plus she had an endearing way of acting like I was the unspoken authority on everything. I could have told her the moon was made of cheese and she'd have believed me beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I didn't have the patience for her family. They didn't seem to see what a gem their daughter was, her parents merely looked at her as a burden, rather than a witty, precocious treasure. They had left her at the hospital and were not heard from until they came to pick her up two weeks later. Hardly the most caring, nurturing environment for the poor girl to be raised in.

I learned the reason behind this. Her mother could find no husband for Esme, despite her evident beauty. I thought it was simply that Esme vehemently told her that she did not want to get married right now, but her mother put it down to Esme's intelligence and opinions. Human men apparently wanted meek little girl to look pretty and say nothing. How tiresome.

"Dr. Cullen?" Ellen called my name quietly, and I snapped out of my reverie.

"I'm terribly sorry," I apologised, my English accent leaking through.

"No, it's no bother, you just seemed like you were miles away." Ellen smiled.

"Away with the fairies," Jimmy chipped in, grinning at the mental image.

"Indeed I was. Good friends of mine, those fairies," I winked at him.

"Carlisle?" My colleague, Dr. Prince, an intern who had started three days previously, called my name from across the ward. I glanced up.

"I'll be right there, Nicholas." I added the finishing touch to Jimmy's plaster cast, and left his bedside to see what Nicholas wanted. His face was grim.

"Can I help you with something?" I asked in a low voice that doctors reserved for keeping the surrounding patients calm and ignorant to the horror injuries around them.

"A woman was just brought into the morgue. She's real messed up. We need you to pronounce her." I was the only attending physician on this shift, so of course, it would be my job.

"She was dead on arrival?" I enquired. I detested cases like these.

"Poor thing threw herself off a cliff by the looks of it. There wasn't anything we could do." Dr. Prince sighed mournfully, shaking his head from side to side in slow motion.

"I see," I nodded glumly. "I'll do it right now then, and I'm going home after that. All my patients are seen to, though you can check up on Jimmy Mallow in thirty minutes."

I strode out of the ward and down the corridor, moving too quickly down a flight of stairs whilst nobody was watching. The smell of blood was potent in the hallway, but I couldn't tell from which direction. I was desperate to get this over with... I hated death.

The door of the morgue creaked open when I pushed it, and it was like something out of a gothic horror novel when I entered. The poor woman's broken, bleeding corpse had been lain out on a gurney with little care, the paramedics not even bothering to cover her in a sheet. She was gone already.

I moved closer to her, brushing her blood-matted curls away from her face. She was still slightly warm, and ravishingly beautiful, but there was something else, something more...

A sickening sense of déjà vu hit me, and I felt a little dizzy. I recognized the young woman before me, though it had been a decade since I had seen her last.

"Esme," I murmured. "What have you done?"

Esme Anne Platt. The girl I had just been thinking about not five minutes previously. My favourite patient. Ten years had passed, and those years had been extremely kind to her, letting her lose her childish awkwardness and blossom into such a beauty that it shocked me, even now in her mangled state, the fresh blood trickling down her cheek like a tear.

_Why would she do this to herself?_

I stroked her hair, ignoring the sweet smell of her blood, lamenting in the loss of a girl I had had no right to care for as much as I surely did. No other death had affected me so.

"Time of death... 19:35," I declared to the cold room.

And then I heard it. That soft sound, lighter than air. Faint, but audible.

A heartbeat.

My vision of everything before me shifted, and before I knew what I was doing I had seized Esme, gathering her in my arms, and fled to the fire exit, kicking the door open.

I ran, speeding, tearing away into the night. I didn't know what had possessed me to do it, but now my course was set, and hell mend me, I would not alter it.

Esme needed to live. I needed her to live. This wasn't a deliberate decision like Edward. My heart had completely eclipsed my head and I had no capacity to resist. I was going to change her, because I _needed_ her. This inexplicable revelation was suddenly as key to my survival as breathing is to a human.

It was selfish, irresponsible... Even as I lay her head against my sofa cushions I could tell that. Even as my teeth sank into her skin; her neck, her wrists, the better, moral part of me was screaming at me to stop, not to do this, to just let her go.

But I couldn't.

Esme's body gave a shudder, and her heart began to thump insistently.

There was no going back now.

Esme POV

I was on fire. The flames of purgatory, grilling me alive for failing. I was paying the price for letting my son die, for being weak and meagre and irreprehensible. The torture was a welcome punishment to me... I deserved it.

I felt some pressure on my forehead – at least, I thought so, but I couldn't be sure it was my forehead. I couldn't tell which way up I was facing, let alone where each piece of my body was.

I deserved the burning. I must endure it.

But it was so much... so harsh, so excruciating.

I whimpered in agony.

"I'm sorry, Esme. So very sorry. Forgive me, please." That voice... I knew that voice! I had dreamt about that voice since the first night I heard it. I had spent years imagining the person, the god-like creature who possessed that voice, showing up at my home and whisking me away from the clutches of my evil husband. Of course, the fact that I was too cowardly to escape him on my own was the reason I was burning. So... what would Dr. Carlisle Cullen be doing here, bearing witness to my torment?

"Esme? You mean – you know her name?" Another voice, a man, smooth like velvet, beautiful and melodic.

"Yes, Edward. She was a patient of mine from a long time ago." Carlisle, the angel of whom I dreamt, sighed deeply as he spoke. So his velvet-voiced companion was named Edward...

"Carlisle, honestly, what possessed you?" Edward's tone was sharp, almost a reprove. I opened my mouth to reprimand him for speaking to an angel that way, but I couldn't find my voice box to frame the words.

"I can't explain it, Edward. I just... I saw her, and I remembered how beautiful she once was, how lively, and I..." Dr. Cullen could not complete his sentence.

"So you wish to condemn her to our family for her virtues?" Edward demanded.

"Don't be that way, Edward, I beg you." The broken tone of Carlisle nearly distracted me from the raging inferno inside me.

"I'm sorry, Carlisle. I didn't mean that. I am grateful that you kept me alive. You're the best father anyone could ask for, and it was inexcusable of me to insinuate otherwise." Edward was Dr. Cullen's _son_? Did that mean he was married?

I felt like my heart would implode with devastation if it could.

"It's okay, Edward. I understand if you truly do... feel that way."

"It was a cruel and bitter comment Carlisle. Don't take it to heart." The boy named Edward sounded remarkably ashamed of himself now. _As well you should_, I thought privately.

A soft, entrancing chuckle came from somewhere above me.

"What?" Carlisle's heavenly voice queried.

"Esme is telling me off," Edward laughed. "She thinks I should be royally ashamed of myself, speaking to you that way."

I heard Carlisle gasp. I was surprised I could differentiate between the two breathing patterns, but I could. "She can hear us now?" he asked, his voice hopeful.

"Yes, every word as clear as a bell. It shouldn't be long now." I didn't know what that meant, and nor did I care; an unsettling thought had just occurred to me.

Could Edward read my mind?

Another soft chuckle. "Yes."

I was certain that he was answering my question, and I was a little outraged. I couldn't forget the fire, but my emotions were coming back a little.

_It's rude to snoop_, I thought in the general direction I supposed Edward was in.

"I'm sorry," he replied, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "I can't help it."

Just then, the fire burning through my veins picked up tempo, and I forgot anything else.

"It's time," Carlisle said quietly.

My heart was galloping, racing ahead faster than my body could stand. I felt sure it would give up trying soon enough, and I was ready. Much as I found it wonderful, hearing Dr. Cullen's voice again, I wanted to die. Dr. Cullen was a childish dream of the past that would never come true.

Three loud beats and my heart gave out.

I lay in comfort for a second, relishing in the delight that my agony had ceased. A thought struck me... was I really dead? I was still breathing, but... it tasted funny. It felt wrong.

Dragging in one of my new, strange breaths, my eyelids fluttered open.

My eyes met two anxious, butterscotch ones, and my dead heart flooded with joy. There, more perfect, more out of this world than I had ever remembered, even though I was sure I could never forget, was Carlisle Cullen.

"Oh!" I gasped, shock flooding through my now dry veins.

"Hello, Esme." He smiled warmly at me, and offered his hand.

Without meaning to, I tensed and recoiled, a low hissing sound escaping my throat. He withdrew his proffered arm slowly, bowing his head a little.

Once I recovered myself, I stood up, tilting my eyes to the floor in shame.

"I'm very sorry," I said solemnly, only it wasn't my voice. It was a shimmering, angelic chorus, surely. My gaze shot to Carlisle, perturbed. He smiled reassuringly.

"It can be a little daunting, I'm sure. But it's perfectly normal."

I nodded jerkily, surprised at how fast the movement was. My eyes darted to my left, and there stood a young man, boyish yet full-grown, with curious, bronze colored hair and the same topaz eyes as... his father, I assumed, as this must've been Edward. He smiled crookedly at me, his dashing face set off by this charming expression. I smiled eagerly back at him. If my son hadn't have left me, I would have wanted him to end up like this beautiful, telepathic ward of Dr. Cullen's.

"What happened?" I murmured, still not sure of my voice.

"You changed, Esme." Carlisle commanded my flighty attention again, and I was struck once more by his magnificence. "I changed you." He looked guilty, ashamed even. It made me anxious to see him like that.

"You're one of us now," Edward grinned cheerfully.

"And what would one of us be exactly?" I felt odd including myself in the plural.

Edward raised one eyebrow for dramatic effect, and delivered his line in the perfect suspenseful tone. "That would be a vampire."


	4. Rochester, 1933

_Rosalie_

**A/N: This is a bit graphically violent in parts, so don't read it if you're easily distressed.**

Rosalie POV

I watched myself in the reflection off the window from where I sat. Vera had not yet closed her drapes, and I could watch my own stunning face in privacy.

I was so beautiful, I decided, and the notion pleased me no end.

"Henry, stop that!" Vera scolded her naughty son. He was sitting bolt upright, his latest achievement, and tugging on the tablecloth that lay over a small table with an ornate vase filled with yellow chrysanthemums on top. It wobbled precariously with every tug.

The adorable boy clapped his pudgy little hand to his mouth and giggled angelically. I stretched out one hand to ruffle his jet black curls affectionately. I loved little Henry.

All I longed for was a pretty baby of my own, someone just as loveable as this little rascal. Finally, it seemed like I was going to get my wish. In one week's time I would be wed to the wealthy Royce King, free to start my own family.

Vera came charging in from the small kitchen to snatch Henry up and plonk him down a few feet away from the tablecloth, so it was out of his grasp.

"Don't you encourage him!" she warned me, smiling. I laughed.

"I'm sorry, how could I resist?" I glanced down at Henry with gloating affection.

"You're right," Vera agreed, beaming proudly. "He's irresistible."

She could not have said a truer word.

"Anyway," I sighed, and stood up. "I had better be going."

"Oh, couldn't you stay a while?" Vera asked, wide-eyed and pleading. I smiled.

"I'm sorry, V. I have to go home, my father's expecting me." I pouted theatrically, and Henry giggled at my funny face.

"Okay." She hurried to embrace me. "I'll see you soon."

"You'll no doubt see me tomorrow," I informed her.

"Oh, not _again_!" Teddy, Vera's husband, strolled through from the hallway with a wide grin on his face. He kept one hand on the door, holding it open for us both. I planted a kiss on Henry's forehead and left the room. Vera scooped up Henry and followed me through the opened door.

"Goodbye, Rose." She beamed, as did Henry, showing his dimples. Teddy joined us by the door, putting an arm around Vera's waist and hugging her close and whispering something to her.

I glanced down at Henry's gummy smile, not wanting to intrude on their moment. Henry gurgled at me, and I cooed back.

"Bye-bye, little one." I ruffled his curls one last time and straightened up, catching Ted kiss Vera on the cheek. She blushed girlishly, and I felt a twinge of jealousy. Royce was seldom so affectionate.

I pushed the thoughts from my mind and let myself out of Vera's house.

The night air was cold, extremely so for April, and I shivered as I began the short walk home. The street lamps were on, and I hadn't realised how dark it truly was. I wandered, dreaming of the wedding that would take place in a few short days. Would it rain? I eyed the sky apprehensively. It was too cold, and April was known for showers... I didn't want that to spoil my day. It would ruin the wedding if we had to move it indoors...

I stopped dead as I turned into a road a mere block away from my house. There, under a broken streetlamp, stood five drunkards, talking and jeering loudly.

It was impossible to avoid them, I just had to hurry past and hope they didn't take any notice of me. I thought futilely about declining my father's offer of an escort home. The way was so short... it had seemed ludicrous.

I kept my head down and walked by the men, unnoticed until one called my name.

"Rose!" he shouted, slurring, and his shout was met by a chorus of laughs.

The men knew me? They were remarkably well-dressed for drunks, I thought, and then I realised who had called my name...

But I had never seen him drink before. I recognised the light blond hair though. I knew those blue eyes.

Royce.

"Here's my Rose!" Royce shouted, laughing, joining in with his imbecilic friends. "You're late, we're cold. You've kept us waiting so long..."

I felt wary, untrusting. How much had he had to drink?

"What did I tell you, John?" he continued, speaking directly to a man whose face I did not recognise. "Isn't she lovelier than all of your Georgia peaches?"

The man named John appraised me silently, as if I were a material acquisition of Royce's, an antique that he was sizing up.

"It's hard to tell," he drawled in a strong, southern accent. "She's all covered up."

They all jeered again.

Before I knew what was happening, I felt my jacket being torn away from my body. The cold air rose goose bumps on my skin, and I heard my brass buttons roll in every direction.

I was more terrified than I had ever been in my life.

"Show him what you look like, Rose!" He leered at me and reached over, yanking my hat from my head. I cried out as he tore my hair from my scalp by the roots.

His friends laughed again, relishing my pain.

"What're you doing?" I yelled loudly. I was beyond panic.

"Keep your voice down, babe." One of his friends spoke up in a voice as greasy as an oil slick.

"Don't _dare _call me that!" I lashed out, disgusted.

Royce's hand flew through the air and struck me hard on the cheek. I fell to the ground, my face on fire.

"Hold your tongue, Rosalie. Be nice to my friends. That's what a good wife does." He kicked me roughly in the gut and I screamed.

"I don't ever want to be your wife anymore!"

"You've said yes now, baby. Don't be like that." His tone turned my stomach, and I blanched at the idea of ever walking down the aisle with this monster.

"I'd sooner die!" I spat with all the venom I could muster.

"Would you?" he replied silkily. "Fancy that."

He wound his hands in my hair and pulled me upward, so that I was at his crouched level, or faces less than an inch apart. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. "Give me a kiss," he murmured.

His lips pressed down on mine painfully, his tongue pushing into my mouth. He tasted _vile_. I tried to push him away, but he held me tighter. I settled for bringing my teeth down on his tongue, biting as hard as I could.

"Argh!" he cried, pulling back. "You stupid bitch!" He slapped me again. And again. I felt my nose snap and whimpered in pain.

"You love me, Rose," he murmured, pushing my back to the cold ground.

---

I lay there, bleeding, broken, agonised. The vile creatures moved around me, getting up, walking away.

"I suppose you'll have to find yourself another bride now, Royce," the monster named John teased. I was repulsed that he could speak so casually about what he had done. What they all had done...

"I may have to learn some patience beforehand," he responded, and they all laughed again. I meant nothing, a broken, used and disregarded toy. I was absolutely _nothing_ to them.

They thought I was dead. They thought it was _funny_.

I lay seething, bitterly, murderously angry as I heard their footsteps fade away. I felt something cold fall onto my face. Rain? No, snow. The cold was horrible, almost as bad as the pain. All I could do was lie and wait.

Wait for death.

---

Carlisle POV

I was on my way home from the hospital, working the late shift. It was cold, unseasonably so, snow falling in large flakes around me and I quickened my pace in human pretence. No human would walk slowly in this chill. My thoughts were wrapped around Esme; sure she would have redecorated again by the time I got home. My heart swelled at the thought of seeing her again. Even a few short hours was far too long for us to be apart.

I felt dreadfully sorry for Edward, I'm sure our thoughts were nauseating for him. He had to spend all day listening to me, which was bad enough, with nothing but Esme on my mind, but he had told me privately that she was just as bad. I wished upon wishing that Edward would soon have a love of his own to distract him from ours.

And that's when I smelled it.

Fresh, human blood.

I was shocked; it wasn't an everyday occurrence to smell blood on the streets. And certainly not to smell that _much_. I veered off course, following my nose.

As I turned the corner, the most awful sight met my eyes. A beautiful, young girl, lying mangled in the street. Dying. The snow around her was saturated with her blood.

She had been attacked.

I moved with superhuman speed to her side, desperate to help in any way I could. I leant over her, recognising her face.

Rosalie Hale.

I could still hear her heart beating, the rhythmic pounding driving me to pick the girl up. If her heart was so strong, she could still be saved.

She could be turned. Maybe then Edward...

I took off, running faster than the wind.

Rosalie POV

I was flying. That was the only explanation. I was flying off to heaven.

But I was still in pain. It had dulled, which I was grateful for, but it was still there.

And then something was cutting me, and I felt fire beginning to gnaw at my insides. The most painful thing I could imagine. I screamed.

Had I been taken away to be hurt further?

But the burning pain did not change. It just kept spreading through my body at an alarming rate, and I ceased to care where I was. I ceased to _be_ anywhere. I just screamed and begged for mercy.

An urgent voice was explaining something in my ear, apologising, saying I was becoming something. I thought I heard the word _vampire_, but I was delirious.

The burning raged.

When I came to some sort of coherency, managing to separate the burn from my thoughts, though feeling its potency just as strongly, I realised I was not alone. I could hear three different breathing sounds. That was odd. I didn't think you could tell the difference between people's breathing patterns.

One person held my hand, firmly and securely, whispering steady streams of apologies. With a shock, I recognised the voice. Dr. Cullen. He was the person who had flown with me? So... that must mean the other two in the room were his wife and brother-in-law, Esme and Edward, I assumed.

I listened hard to their conversation when I heard my name mentioned by the woman, Esme.

"...for poor, poor Rosalie," she said. A male groan of exasperation.

"What were you thinking, Carlisle?" Edward growled. "_Rosalie Hale_?"

He sneered my name, and I felt a spark of irritation. He had no reason to react to me in such a way.

"I couldn't just let her die," Carlisle answered softly. "It was too much – too horrible, too much waste."

"I know," Edward dismissed. Annoyance flared again. How could he possibly know?

"It was too much waste. I couldn't leave her," Carlisle repeated.

"Of course you couldn't," Esme soothed. From the sound of her voice, I could tell she was standing closer to Carlisle than Edward was. She sounded kind. Decent.

"People die all the time," Edward countered coldly. "Don't you think she's just a little recognisable though? The Kings' will have to put up a huge search – not that anyone suspects the fiend." He let a real growl rip through his chest then, and though it frightened me, it pleased me also. They knew what Royce had done to me.

I felt the pain ease from my fingers, and flexed them.

"What are we going to do with her?" Edward asked, revolted.

A sigh from Carlisle. I was surprised I recognised his exhalation. "That's up to her. She may want to go her own way."

I knew that Carlisle had told me what was happening, what I was becoming, and it frightened me. I didn't want to be both afraid and alone.

The heat in my heart seared suddenly, and I screeched. My heartbeats sped, racing, galloping off towards their last.

With one last thump, my heart was silenced forever.

My eyelids opened, and I looked out through new eyes.

The world was sharper. Crystal clear. Perfectly colored. I gazed above in wonderment, before I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Without knowing how I got there, I was suddenly on the other side of the room, my back against the wall, my body sunk into a crouch. A low snarl was building in the back of my throat.

I saw Carlisle, his hand outstretched, and straightened immediately. There stood the three people I had always envied for their beauty, greater even than my own.

Esme, her lovely face gentle, Carlisle, who looked concerned, and Edward, who was scowling, his arms folded tightly across his chest.

"What happened?" I queried, and I was astounded by the sound of my own voice. Such a sweet, seductive harmony. I felt like I could hear it all day. Edward's frown deepened.

"You've changed, Rosalie," Esme explained carefully. "You're a... vampire."

Though I had been told this before, it still shocked me profoundly.

"What changes? Other than my voice?" I enquired with some trepidation.

"Your face has changed. All of you, actually. You're stronger, faster, and virtually indestructible. Your senses are heightened. You cannot cry; you have venom, but no tears. You thirst for blood." Carlisle explained all this clinically. I knew of the thirst already from the flash burn in my throat.

"And..." Esme smiled a beatific smile at me. "You are even more beautiful than before."

My ears perked up a bit at that. _More_ beautiful? Was that even possible?

I saw Edward press his fist to his mouth to try and refrain from laughing at something. Not knowing what, I assumed it was something to do with me and scowled at him. He was an irritating toad, I could see that already. His laughter grew more pronounced.

"Can I see myself?" I whispered to Esme, the only one I truly felt any warmth to right now. She beamed and nodded, flying out of the room at a speed that stunned me. Obviously not human.

She was back in a second, a small, handheld mirror in her bone-white grip. She handed it to me without hesitation. I felt suddenly excited, and I caught Edward rolling his eyes in my peripheral vision. Sparing a moment to give him a disparaging look, I gazed into my own reflection.

I gasped.

I was more than beautiful. I was extraordinary. Far lovelier than Edward or Carlisle or even perfect Esme. I was beyond perfection.

My blonde hair was shiny, silkier than before, waving to my waist. Each one of my features was more defined, paler and totally unblemished. The only thing wrong was the pair of bright, blood-red eyes.

"Why are my eyes like this?" I wondered, alarmed.

"It will pass soon, Rosalie," Carlisle assured me. Good, I thought. I wanted nothing to mar my radiance.

Edward snorted with laughter, and Esme glared at him.

"Behave," she warned; a reproach.

I gazed down into the mirror again, staring lovingly at the reflection of a vampire.


	5. Appalachian Mountains, 1935

Emmett POV

I ducked the massive paw of the bear as it swatted at me, enjoying the dangerous dance immensely. I wasn't afraid, and perhaps that was foolish, but I adored the thrill of adrenaline these stunts produced. I laughed in the face of death.

What was the motivation in living without the prospect of death?

The angry grizzly came at me again, lunging forward, his jaw shutting with a snap on nothingness as his claws raked thin air an inch from my chest. I laughed again, antagonising the beast. It gave a blind roar of rage and hurled its heavy body at me, knocking the rifle I was holding from my hands, flinging me bodily to the ground.

I lay there, pinned, as a blinding, searing pain burned into my stomach. My vision swam; this time, the claws had found their mark. I grimaced, an agonised cry escaping my lips.

The bear's teeth glistened an inch from my face, and I knew I was done for.

Suddenly, a blurry streak of gold and white collided with the bear, sending it careering backwards with a strangled yelp. Its roars choked off with a gurgling noise. A second snarl took its place; more feral, primitive and dangerous. Another bear was claiming me as its prize, I thought.

My vision was partially obscured; I was seeing spots; but when the haze cleared a little I saw what was standing in front of me, and it most certainly wasn't a bear.

The gold and white blur that had spared me took form, and my pain disappeared. The most beautiful, heavenly, impossible angel stood before me, her wide topaz eyes horrified, her full lips parted in dismay. Her face was whiter than snow, and twice as pristine. Soft waves of hair fell down her back like spun gold, curling at the ends as they reached her waist.

As the angel approached, I felt myself being lifted, felt her cradle me to her chest, and then... she took flight, racing away to deliver me to heaven. I could do nothing but gaze, transfixed at her tender expression, lost in her amber eyes.

Rosalie POV

I had been hunting, balancing along the narrow branch of a spindly tree, seeing how far I could walk without it bending under my weight. I stepped into midair, turning a somersault as the ground rushed up to meet me, and landing softly on the balls of my feet. A giggle of irrepressible delight escaped my lips.

When I was hunting, when I was free to run at my fastest and clear wide rivers in one bound, those were the moments when I all but forgot about my human woes.

Edward and I rarely agreed on anything, but we both loved the freedom of the hunt. We adored the speed. I suppose it was the foundation of our friendship – we were perfectly in synch when we were tuning our cars or racing each other through the forest. I could tell that both Esme and Carlisle were a little disheartened by the fact that neither Edward nor I saw cared for the other in anything but a platonic, brother-sister manner, but I couldn't help the fact that I simply was not attracted to him. It bothered me a little that he extended the same emotions to me, but after witnessing Tanya throw herself at him on every opportunity, I realised that that was merely who he was.

Still, I hated disappointing Esme; she had become much more of a mother to me in the past two years than my own mother had before that. She was a confidant, an ally. A friend. And Carlisle was a teacher, a guide. They were a couple, concretely and absolutely. They lived and breathed as one.

But I had no love of my own, and it pained me.

A roar interrupted my thought process, followed by a human yell of agony. It was only a mile or so through the forest, due north. Perhaps the human could be helped if he – for it was most definitely a he – were in trouble.

I soared through the dense undergrowth, so fast it felt like flying, and then stopped dead when he came into view. My cold heart nearly froze over completely as horror flooded through my dried up arteries.

"Henry?" I cried, frantic. I was being ridiculous. Of course it wasn't Henry. Vera's son would be barely three years old. But those dark curls... those dimples...

Without a moment's pause, I flung myself at the bear, snapping his neck easily in my hands. Barely stopping to change direction, I all but flew to the human's side, gathering him up in one swooping movement. His dark eyes locked on mine, and I was completely mesmerized. He was the most beautiful human I had ever laid eyes on.

I knew what I had to do. I had to save him. I needed Carlisle.

I ran flat out, my urgency spurring me on. I had to make it.

I screamed for Carlisle as I reached our large, white house. "CARLISLE! HELP ME!"

"Rosalie?" Esme asked in confusion, opening the front door to let me pass. Her mouth fell open as she took in the bloody, mauled man in my arms.

"Edward, Carlisle!" I yelled, desperate for anyone to help me. I didn't care who. I knew what I wanted now, what I needed, but I didn't have the strength...

I shot through the door like a bullet from a gun, laying the bleeding man across the sofa. Carlisle was waiting for me with his medical kit, his expression anxious. Edward was gaping at me like I'd lost my mind, seeing where my thoughts were headed.

Carlisle set about opening up the bag, as I, covered in the familiar stranger's blood, hopped from foot to foot, restless and terrified.

"Rosalie, hand me the..."

"You won't need that." I cut across Carlisle before he could finish. "You won't need any of it. I don't want you to fix him." The manic gleam in my eyes was clearly scaring my adoptive parents, but Edward knew the reason behind it. He nodded once to me in agreement.

"What?" Carlisle frowned in confusion.

"Don't fix him... change him." It was a command; that much was evident in my tone.

"Rosalie, I cannot be..." he began, but I cut him off once more.

"Please, Carlisle. Please. Do this for me. He's going to die..." My breathing caught in my throat, and I started to 'cry', the stress consuming me. I couldn't let this beautiful, precious man die. "Don't let him die, Carlisle. Please. Please, please, please!"

I sank to the floor while I grovelled, begging for him to be transformed. It was selfish, foolish, but I needed him to be saved.

"Do it, Carlisle." Edward, the last person I expected to fight my corner, spoke up. "She loves him."

That revelation shocked me. Was I in love? Did I love the stranger before me? Was it possible? A quick nod from Edward told me all I needed to know. Carlisle hesitated, whilst Esme seemed more decided.

"Please, Carlisle, for your daughter. She loves this man. Save him." Now that Esme had spoken, there was no way that Carlisle would disagree with her. He could never make her unhappy; his love for her was so absolute.

"Alright," Carlisle agreed. "But fetch me some water to clean his face afterwards. He's covered in blood."

As was I, though it mattered none.

"Thank you," I breathed, the fervor in my voice so strong it resonated around the room. Edward disappeared to fetch water. Esme dashed upstairs for something else. I stayed with my feet firmly planted as I watched Carlisle bend over my love.

His eyelids flickered, and then opened, and his dark eyes rolled blindly, searching.

"Where are you?" he whispered in a pained voice. "Angel, where did you go?"

Was he talking about _me_?

"Angel, don't leave me!" he begged in a broken croak.

"I'm right here," I replied softly, moving into his eye line. His eyes stopped the frenetic flickering.

"Stay," he implored me. Like I could leave him now.

"I will," I vowed. "I'll be here the whole time."

"Good," he muttered, and his eyes closed again.

I watched as Carlisle bent over him, as his razor sharp teeth tore at his flesh again and again, my selfish desires eating me up inside.

Emmett POV

_My angel was here, that was all that mattered. The searing pain I felt burning through my veins didn't matter. It was my judgement. My angel was here. My angel was here. _

But after endless hours of burning, after eternities in agony, I had to wonder whether this wasn't hell after all. God had not looked welcoming to me, he had seemed hesitant, and maybe he had decided to send me to hell after all. But if hell was where I was, why would my angel still be looking down at me with a tortured expression on her glorious face?

"Angel," I croaked, my voice rasping from the sheer magnitude of my pain. She winced as the noise came out. "What's happening to me?"

She merely raised a perfect hand to run her fingers through my hair. "It will all be over soon." Her voice was so beautiful it made me want to cry, something I never did. Lighter than air, softer than silk, and so fluid and hypnotic...

"How soon?" I pleaded, needing to know for sure when my torment would cease.

"Soon. Very soon. You have maybe an hour left. Hold on for me." Her molten gold irises captivated me. I nodded. I would hold on for my angel. The pain was worth it. She was worth it.

I would fight the darkness surrounding me, just by gazing at her beauty.

A low chuckle sounded from across the room, but I couldn't lift my head to see who it was. It sounded like a male voice though.

"What's so funny?" My angel murmured, stroking my face with her forefinger as I writhed in pain.

"It is not night when I do see your face." This voice was as entrancing as my angel's, only velvet rather than silk. I didn't understand what he was saying.

"What does that mean, Edward?" My angel asked brusquely. Her full lips were pursed in annoyance. So her companion was named Edward...?

"It's what he thinks of you, Rosalie." The male voice laughed gently. I was too distracted by the sound of my angel's name. Rosalie... it was perfect, like her.

The fire in my heart seared, and I blanched, as it raced on, galloping faster and faster. I felt sure if my heart beat any more insistently it would give out.

"It's time," my perfect angel Rosalie said.

With one last galumph, my heart was still. To my intense surprise, the pain was gone. I could feel the cool air circulating in my throat as I breathed, and it felt funny. I was almost... indifferent to it. Was I dead?

I blinked rapidly and rubbed my hand across my face. Everything was so clear. It was mesmerizing, unnerving.

"Are you okay?" I recognized the shimmering voice of Rosalie.

Gazing at her with my new eyes... words couldn't describe her perfection. It was almost too much to bear. It almost hurt to look at her; like staring at the sun.

She smiled breathtakingly at me, and if my heart could've stopped again, it would have.

"I'm fine." My own voice was different. It was still deep, but smooth and musical somehow. My skin was palest white, I noticed, as I stretched a hand in front of me.

"What's your name?" A man, the same one I knew to be God, spoke to me. Beside him stood a woman so sweet and dainty and stunning that my jaw dropped a little. She was not the perfection of Rosalie, but still lovelier than any woman I had ever laid eyes on.

"Emmett. Emmett McCarty." I tried to remember what I had been doing prior to this, but it was a bit hazy, like trying to squint through fog. "Do I remember something about a bear?"

A chuckle rang throughout the room. "I like him." I glanced over to see a bronze haired boy, possibly two or three years my junior, leaning against a wall and smirking a sideways smile.

"Emmett, I am Carlisle Cullen, and this is my wife Esme, our son, Edward, and our daughter, Rosalie." I nodded at each of them in turn, not removing my gaze from Rosalie once I had greeted her. She stared back, an enchantress.

"Emmett," she murmured, and I adored the beauty of my name in her voice. "Welcome to our family."

"What kind of family is this, Rosalie?" I asked. She smiled when I said her name.

"We're not human."

"Did I die?"

"No. Not really. It's hard to explain." She bit her lip. "You might be afraid."

"Try me." I grinned.

"We're vampires," Edward chimed in. After a brief second of feeling stunned, I shrugged.

"Cool."

Four pairs of topaz eyes stared at me incredulously, but I sought Rosalie's gaze once more. If such a radiant beauty, such a fantastic creature was a vampire, how bad could it be?

So there I stood. Vampire number five.


	6. Galveston, 1863

Jasper POV

I urged my horse onwards, desperate to make it back to Galveston before sunrise. I had to stay in Houston longer than I'd originally planned; one of the children had decided to run away from the scary soldiers with the muskets. It had taken me an hour to find the little girl, and when I did, she was cowering behind some shipping crates by the docks.

I glanced to my left as I rode, aware that I was no longer alone on this dusty country highway. I didn't know how to explain it, but I could feel someone's eyes on me. I was instantly alert, my soldier's instincts kicking in. Friend or foe? I couldn't be sure.

That's when I saw them... three lone women meandering along the road. I pulled my horse to a stop immediately – these women looked lost, and in need of aid. What kind of gentleman would I be if I did not try to assist them?

I dismounted as the three walked slowly towards me, keeping one hand on the horse's flank to keep him calm; for some reason, he was balking, twitching nervously, desperate to get away.

"Easy boy," I soothed, and he seemed slightly mollified.

The three women continued fluidly towards me, two tall and one small, tiny in fact. I took a few steps in their direction, sure that I was within hearing distance of them now.

"Excuse me, ladies?" I called. "Are you lost?"

They stopped a few short feet from me, saying nothing, merely staring at me in mild surprise. One of the taller ones, with hair so blonde it was white and a curious expression whispered something to the smallest of the three. She nodded slightly, so fast I almost missed the movement.

But none of these things registered in my brain more than dimly, as the moonlight made their features visible to me. I gasped in shock.

They were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most beautiful, fantastical creatures I had ever laid eyes on. Their skin was so pale, whiter than bone, and I marvelled as it glimmered slightly by the moonlight. The tallest was stick thin, with toasty golden hair that was wildly curly and the biggest eyes I had ever seen, framed with thick lashes. Her irises were pitch-dark, so black they blended with the pupils, and it stood in extreme contrast to her snowy skin.

The second was shorter, platinum blonde, and just as lovely. She, too, had inky black eyes. The third was odd – she was by far the most beautiful of the three demi-goddesses that stood before me, so stunning that I felt the urge to blink, but she was clearly Mexican, her features Hispanic, along with her hair color. But her skin was as white as her companions.

The gorgeous young women were not stray members of our party as I had assumed. I would have recognized these faces anywhere.

The tallest one gave an enchanting laugh. "He's speechless." Her voice sounded like a wind chime.

The second blonde leant towards me, inhaling deeply and fluttering her long eyelashes. "Mmm," she murmured, as if my smell was intoxicating to her. "Lovely."

The miniscule brunette placed a hand on her arm in what appeared to be restraint. Her voice was too smooth and soft to be a bark, but I believed that was her intent as she said, "Concentrate, Nettie."

Those two words told me that the little Mexican girl was in charge. How curious.

"He looks right," the small one deliberated, chewing her lip with gleaming white teeth. "Young, strong, an officer... and there's something more, do you sense it?" She turned to her companions, furrowing her brow, trying to put a name to what the something I apparently had was.

"He's... compelling," she decided.

"Oh, yes." Nettie leaned eagerly towards me again, nodding her agreement.

"Patience," the brunette cautioned. "I want to keep this one."

Nettie sighed and stepped back, a scowl on her face. The tallest turned to her leader. "You'd better do it, Maria. If he's important to you. I kill them twice as often as I keep them."

The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I shivered involuntarily. I hadn't a clue what they meant, but the taller one spoke of killing. Though I couldn't quite get over my transfixed awe, I knew that I should be afraid. But I was a soldier; I was taught to protect women, not fear them. Particularly angels like these.

"Yes, I'll do it. I really do like this one. Take Nettie away will you? I don't want to have to protect my back while I'm trying to focus."

"Let's hunt!" Nettie suggested enthusiastically, and she seized the tall girl's hand, made an about-face and fled in the direction she had just come, taking her companion with her. They moved so speedily and so gracefully that I could've sworn they were flying. I stared until they were out of sight.

Maria was staring at me curiously. "What is your name, soldier?"

I wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't a ghost, or some other kind of ghoul, but I had never been rude to a lady in my life and I didn't intend on starting now. "Major Jasper Whitlock, ma'am."

She smiled, and it stopped my breath. She was so beautiful!

"I truly hope you survive, Jasper. I have a good feeling about you." She stepped close to me, and her sweet, intoxicating scent was overwhelming. Placing one hand on either shoulder – I shivered at her icy touch – she inclined her head towards me as though she were leaning in to kiss me. I was rooted to the ground, unable to move, unable to think.

And then her teeth made contact with my jugular, tearing into the flesh. Agony ripped through my torso, and I fell to my knees in shock. She pulled back, spitting a mouthful of my blood onto the road, and running her tongue over her teeth. I cringed away from the sight... it was horrible, repulsive. A rising warmth was radiating through my body now, a heat that glowed and then burned and then seared. I blistered under its intensity, juddering, my shoulders convulsing.

"I'm really sorry," she whispered, kneeling beside me and stroking one hand across my face. "It is horrible to endure, I remember. You won't suffer long." Her tone was gentle, but my eyes were wide with fear. I felt like I couldn't breathe through the pain, and every second was much, much too long to suffer. I had considered myself a brave man before this, but it was unendurable. The fire ate at my bones.

Maria picked me up in her arms; so small in comparison that the gesture looked odd; and began to run with me, faster than I'd ever travelled in my life. It was as if she wasn't even touching the ground, but the pain was so intense I did not care.

I felt like I was burning for _years_. It was nothing but boundless, endless agony, each tongue of fire ripping through my body, but eventually, I managed to think around it a little. To be able to hear that there was still a world around me. I caught snippets of conversation, occasionally hearing Maria's voice, along with the two others I recognised. I began to smell the sweet, beautiful scents more clearly now, began to be able to separate each smell from the others. It was a long time until I became able to truly focus on a conversation though.

"Nettie!" Maria was hissing. "You should never have brought that... that human here!"

"I was hungry," Nettie didn't sound too fussed, whatever Maria was talking about. Her voice was further away. It sounded like Maria was right beside me.

"But now we have a body to get rid of! You should have disposed of him earlier!" Maria was furious; I could practically feel it washing over me.

"Well, I didn't." Nettie sounded obstinate. I could hear a rhythmic tugging noise, like someone brushing their hair.

"I can't go out! I have to stay here with Jasper." Maria said my name with evident affection. "Lucy, how could you let her bring the body back?"

Lucy... I assumed that this was the last of the three. The tallest.

"I don't know why I let her Maria. It was careless, I know. I apologise." Lucy sounded sincere.

I felt a light pressure on my forehead. "It won't be long now. Jasper is nearly finished with the transformation. Listen to his heart," Maria murmured, her fingers pushing my hair back from my brow. Her skin did not feel anywhere near as cold as it had the first time she touched me, and I wished it had. I could use some cool relief now.

"I hear," Lucy said simply.

And then I listened too, and I heard what they meant. My heart was speeding at a million miles an hour, thrumming as it bounced in my chest, making my back arch so much I thought it would break...

As quickly as it had sped, my heart stopped completely. I slumped back to whatever I was lying on, everything absolutely still around me. I didn't even dare to breathe. It was strange... but I didn't need to. The only difference between breathing and not breathing was that I could no longer smell Maria's scent close beside me.

A hand touched my cheek and I flipped, arced through the air to land ten feet from my original position with my frame tensed and my fists clenched, a snarl ripping from my chest. Not even half a second had passed.

"Jasper..." My eyes, sharper than I thought possible, fell onto Maria's face. I was almost knocked back a step by the absurdity of her beauty – she was so perfect that it hurt to look at her. And the two behind her were equally wonderful.

I relaxed my frame, inhaling sharply through my nose. I could taste the open fire in the air, the sweet, intoxicating scents of the three women before me, and a multitude of other things.

I realised that I was concerned, though I wasn't sure why.

"Jasper, do you remember what happened to you?" My eyes darted around the room once before coming to rest on Maria's earnest face again. I considered her question.

I knew what had happened to me, I sensed it, but did I remember it... I tried to recall something, and though I was dimly aware, it was like squinting through thick fog; I could faintly see Maria approaching me, leaning in...

I snarled again. "You bit me."

"Listen to me, Jasper," Maria soothed. "You must control your temper." I struggled to calm down for a moment, relaxing my defensive posture once more.

The three exchanged impressed looks.

"What is the matter with me?" I demanded, and noticed what my voice sounded like for the first time. It was a resounding bass tone, melodic and calming. I listened with wonder. My Texan accent was still there, but it was a thousand times more fluid and elegant.

"You've been transformed, Jasper." Maria's voice was very similar to mine, I realised. I glanced down at my balled up fists, and noted with shock that they were bone white, paler than Maria, paler than Lucy, nearly as pearly white as Nettie. I gasped, and once again tasted the air around me.

"Into what?" I narrowed my eyes, suspicious.

"Into a vampire." My eyes widened, and as they did I noticed that Maria's own eyes were a dull crimson color. My jaw dropped.

"A vampire?"


	7. Biloxi, 1920

_Alice_

**A/N: I don't know what the vampire who changed Alice is called, so in my head he is Francis.**

Alice POV

I felt shaky as I raised the glass of water to my lips, my teeth clattering against the cool rim. He would come for me today, I knew it. I'd had one of my dreams again. The twisting, turning, spinning dream. The one where the man named James found me; took me in his arms and ripped out my throat with his teeth. My hand brushed along the window sill nervously. He wasn't here yet, I reminded myself. He wasn't here yet.

But he was coming. That was enough to scare me silly.

"Mary?" Francis called for me from along the corridor.

My mother was what Francis liked to call a God Botherer. She was the type to quote from the bible and go to church every evening. She thought my visions were the work of the devil. To be fair, she had tried very hard to love me, but after nineteen years of my clairvoyance, she had had enough and sent me here.

I wasn't insane. This place was the wrong place for me to be. I was just... gifted. That's what Francis said.

"Mary Alice Brandon," Francis came into view in my doorway, his beautiful old-young face slightly smiling and a twinkle in his eyes. "Are you worrying again?"

"It's just Alice today, Francis." I smiled warmly at him. Francis was an orderly in the asylum. He truly believed my story, told me that I wasn't crazy, sat with me and held my hand whenever I was upset about a vision. He was a great comfort, despite his icy cold skin. I often joked that he should wear mittens.

"Okay then, Just Alice, I'd stop worrying if I were you." As Francis sat on the bed, I rested my cheek against his stone shoulder.

"I can't help but worry. You know how right I always am."

Francis squeezed my arm in sympathy. "You aren't infallible, Alice. And I'll protect you."

"A man named James is coming for me. He has the most horrible..." I suppressed a shudder. "The most horrible red eyes."

Francis grew very still, watching something out the small window in my room. "What did he say in the dream, Alice?"

"He said, 'I win.'" I frowned at my water glass. "What could that mean?"

"It means..." Francis trailed off, his face thoughtful. "It means, shut your eyes tightly Mar... sorry, Alice."

I did as he asked, impatient. "Why is this necessary, Francis?"

I felt his lips press into the skin on my forehead, directly between my eyes, and then he sighed.

"Open your eyes, Alice." That was not Francis's voice. My eyes flew open in sheer terror as I recognized the sound. That was James. James from my visions.

He was holding one hand out, having seized Francis in a chokehold. I gasped in horror, and he fixed his ruby-eyed glare on me now. Very clearly, he gave us both a menacing smile and said, "I win."

One second later, I was flying through the air as Francis tackled me against a wall, my head hitting the brick with a sickening crack. I flailed blindly as the blood seeped into my hair, then screamed as something sharp bit into my neck, hard. I felt my vein break, and then I was knocked unconscious.

---

Burning. Burning. I was being tortured, baked alive. I couldn't think. I couldn't move.

Why didn't they just kill me already? I prayed for death again.

---

_Open your eyes, Alice_. I have no idea why those four words popped into my head. I obeyed the instructions implicitly though, not thinking to question it. Everything around me was thrown into sharp focus. I was in the woods, sunlight filtering through the trees around me, though I was in a shaded space under a wide bough of an oak tree. What had happened?

I looked up at the light canopy above me, trying to remember something... anything. It was like someone had just wiped my mind clean of everything I had ever known. My breath started to come in short pants, but it didn't feel right. I couldn't quite put my finger on it...

I was beginning to get anxious. Okay, if I broke it down, step by step...

Where was I? In a forest, as I had guessed, though I didn't know where. It was sunny, wherever I was, and warm.

Who was I? That should maybe have been my first concern, but I hadn't realised that I was unaware of even my own identity until a minute ago. I knew my name was Alice, though I couldn't understand how I knew that, but I had no idea where I came from or what my last name was. If I had parents or not.

I looked down at my body, and frowned. I was wearing uniform blue pyjamas, the kind that crazy people are forced to wear when they are taken to the asylum. Oddly, I remembered everything about life in general, just not my own.

My most pressing concern was the dull burn in the back of my throat. I had no idea what that could mean, and it was confusing me no end trying to figure it out. It was like... thirst, I supposed. But thirst for what?

Suddenly, my vision swam before my eyes and I had to blink repeatedly, feeling all the more afraid. I was already drawing a blank on my life; I didn't need to go blind as well! When the haze cleared, it was not the forest around me that I saw.

_I was looking upon a diner, the waitresses all in red and white pinstripe dresses and bustling around laden down with colossal amounts of food. _

_My vision seemed to fixate on a girl perched on a stool at the counter. I could see why – the girl was extraordinarily beautiful. Every feature on her moon-bright face was perfect, indescribably so. Her black hair was spiky and sticking out in every direction, her golden eyes bored. Those eyes were entrancing; I could only stare for a moment, astounded. _

_Then the door of the diner swung open, and my eyes nearly fell out their sockets. Standing in the doorway was the most beautiful, most incomparably godlike creature I had ever laid eyes on. If I had thought the pixie-like girl was beautiful, she was nothing, nothing compared to the honey blond vision of perfection that had just entered the diner. He moved with surreal grace, his dark eyes alert and watchful. I barely noticed the scars that crisscrossed across every exposed inch of skin. They were irrelevant, casting no aspersions on his beauty. _

_He walked fluidly to the girl perched on the stool, and you had to just look at them to know they were meant for each other. It was as if the girl had been there for years, just hoping he would turn up. _

_She hopped from the stool in a movement so quick and smooth that I was filled with jealousy, and skipped nimbly to meet the tall angel who had just entered. _

_"You've kept me waiting a long time," she accused in a voice as harmonious as a wind chime. _

_The blond angel ducked his head. "I'm sorry, ma'am." _

I snapped out of it quickly, the scene fading into the forest again. The image of the beautiful couple was ingrained into my retina.

"I wish she was me," I sighed wistfully. My voice brought me up short. It was... like a wind chime. I brought my hands up to my mouth in shock, and saw the sunlight glint of my pearly skin like a diamond. My breath caught in my throat. She _was_ me.

_"Carlisle, we should probably go hunting soon. You know what happened last time with Emmett." A young woman with caramel curls was saying to a man. These two, like the last couple, were heartbreakingly beautiful. Carlisle, the man, turned to his... wife, I guessed, by their wedding rings, and laid a hand on her shoulder._

_"Don't worry Esme, my love. We'll hunt soon. Emmett won't attack any more humans. It's a regrettable mistake on my part to have let him go out on that errand for Rosalie." Carlisle sighed._

_"I know that you can't help it, but try not to blame yourself so much. It was an accident. A horrible accident. I just want you to take Emmett hunting. He may not be a newborn anymore, but he's still exceedingly young for a vampire."_

My vision snapped back to the forest for the second time. I was stunned. A vampire... is that what they were?

The burn flared in my throat again.

Is that what _I_ was?


	8. Philidelphia, 1948

Alice POV

I had been waiting for eight days already before he came. It was the same routine now, and the staff were used to me sitting there from opening to closing, an untouched cup of coffee cooling in front of me.

He still hadn't showed up. I knew he would soon, my visions were clearer and clearer with every decision he made. Jasper... Major Jasper Whitlock... I had found out his name in one of my visions soon after I was changed, and it had rang in my ears every day since.

My eyes flashed to the door, my heart leaping...

A woman and her little boy strolled in, talking and laughing. She took him to one of the booths by the window, and they sat down as a waitress shuffled over to them. I sighed mournfully and focused on my coffee again. Still no Jasper.

The bell on the door tinkled again, and my eyes slid to the side without my conscious thought.

This time... this time, my heart gave a leap and soared. The tall, ravishingly handsome vampire of my dreams had just walked straight into my eye line, shaking the rain from his honey blond hair.

Jasper was even more beautiful in reality than my visions. His hair hung just so over his alabaster brow, his dark eyes soulful despite the reddish tinge, his features straight and proud. Even the half-moon scars etched across his pearly skin were beautiful.

I hopped from the stool, noticing his start of utter shock as I danced towards him. He knew what I was, and he reeled back, wary. That didn't stop me. I skidded to a halt at his feet, gazing up into his near black eyes – he was so impossibly tall from this angle – and smiled.

"You've kept me waiting a long time." I told him seriously, frowning a little. There was more truth to that statement than he realised. Twenty eight years is a very long time. The strangest expression crossed his face. He looked almost... bewildered, but there was a hint of... indulgence, I thought. He returned my smile, an action that made my breath catch in my throat. Ducking his head in a courteous nod, he said in the deep, musical southern accent that had dominated my head since my very first vision, "I'm sorry, ma'am."

Jasper POV

I hadn't hunted for a few days, and I was hungry, but there was a more pressing concern on my list... exposure. The sun was being held at bay by a few insubstantial clouds after the light showering of rain, and it threatened to break through at any moment. Seeing a small diner up ahead, completely devoid of people save for a mother and child by the window, I seized my opportunity.

The door clanged as I pushed it open, the noise surprising me after the quiet of my run through the woods. I took one step forwards, fighting the burn I felt in my throat, and then stopped dead as a new scent drifted towards me. Sweet, intoxicating... like chocolate and cinnamon and pear.

A vampire.

My eyes flashed upwards, and met the curious gaze of another of my kind. She knocked me back a step. She was petite, with flyaway black hair and thin, pixie-like features, more beautiful than any vampire I had ever laid eyes on before. Her eyes were still boring into me, only they were wrong. A curious, smouldering butterscotch. She was captivating.

The elfin girl leapt from her stool smoothly, and sped toward me, stopping inches away. I gazed down into her odd eyes, a little apprehensive, and felt a rush of satisfaction that was not entirely my own.

"You've kept me waiting a long time," she accused me in the most beautiful, chiming voice.

I smiled as I felt her relief. It was as if she was glad I was here. I nodded at her in polite greeting, all my gentlemanly instincts resurfacing. There was something about this beautiful, intriguing creature... she was angelic, and honest, and dainty.

"I'm sorry, ma'am." I apologised. Her smile nearly re-stopped my frozen heart. Wordlessly, she extended a hand to me. I didn't know what made me trust her, her purity, her sincerity, but I reached out and took her tiny hand in my own, weaving my fingers through hers. My palm tingled as I did this, and it felt to me like it was a sign. As if our hands were made to hold the others. I had never been such a dreamy romantic before, but this golden eyed vampire brought a multitude of emotions to my surfaced, the likes of which I hadn't experienced as a vampire. Or even as a human.

"This way, Jasper." She led me out the door now, letting it swing shut gently behind us. I was not surprised that she knew my name, destiny was a funny thing, but I was worried about the sun.

As if she'd read my thoughts, she turned to me with a grin. "Don't worry about the sun. It's going to stay behind those clouds for another hour or so."

I blinked repeatedly. "How did you know?"

"I've seen it." She beamed.

"What? How?" I breathed, confused.

"I have visions of the future," she replied, perfectly calmly. I stared at her for a moment, utterly flabbergasted, and then I did something that took us both by surprise. I laughed.

I couldn't remember the last time that happened, but I did. I threw back my head and let out a throaty chuckle, relishing in the free feeling.

"What's your name?" I asked suddenly, as I realised I didn't know it.

"Alice," was her instant reply.

_Alice..._ I glanced down at the bright, shiny girl skipping beside me. Alice suited her. Down the rabbit hole, and into wonderland. She was a little like the inquisitive girl of the storybook, I thought.

"Jasper and Alice..." I muttered to myself, unaware that I had spoken out loud until she fixed me with a shocked look. Her surprise turned to glee as she flashed me a blinding, stunning smile.

"Jasper and Alice," she agreed, leading me forwards through the busy street.


End file.
